


Torn

by cmshaw



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-05-14
Updated: 1998-05-14
Packaged: 2017-10-08 06:36:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cmshaw/pseuds/cmshaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim storms out of a confrontation with Blair to terrorize a young boy, As Seen On TV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Torn

**Author's Note:**

> All dialogue and most scenery taken from the episode 'Nightshift' of _The Sentinel_.

> And I didn't know  
> By giving my hand  
> That I would be written down, sliced around, passed down  
> Among strangers' hands
> 
> You're a voyeur  
> The worst kind of thief  
> To take what happened to us  
> To write everything down that went on between you and me
> 
> \--Sheryl Crow, "The Book"

_I call it a violation of friendship and trust. I call it a violation of friendship and trust._

He couldn't seem to stop repeating those words, silently, over and over. Jim felt the shock pass up through his spine with each thump of his heel against the floor as he walked away from his partner.

_I call it a violation._

There had been no friendship in those pages he'd so hastily skimmed. 'Paranoia.' 'Fear responses.' 'Lack of intimacy.' 'The subject displayed a territorial instinct even in personal arrangements...' Laid open, laid out with his defenses pinned back like insects' wings in a glass case -- James J. Ellison, test subject one. He felt sick.

Was this what Blair thought of him? Was this what went through his mind as they laughed together over dinner, picked out paint for the loft, argued over whose turn it was to pick up the check for lunch? How could Blair sit and smile at him while measuring his every move? How could Blair sit there, how could he smile at someone whom he had measured and found so lacking?

_No wonder Blair never showed me that he loved me the way I love him; how could he love something like what he'd described in that paper? God, I am such a damned fool. He doesn't love me at all, not even as a partner. There was never any hope._

He threw back to door to the interrogation room where they were keeping Johnny Mikado. Yanking out the chair and throwing himself into it, he watched with satisfaction as the boy's head jerked up in sudden fear. "Man, what's up with that?" the kid said, face brave but pulse racing.

"Might as well get used to it. The state pen's a noisy place." Jim hid his satisfaction at this proof of his authority. "You know, I can place you in a car and the car at the scene, which is all the DA is gonna need to place a gun in your hand."

"I didn't shoot nobody." _Little boy, do you think that's what this is about?_

"Oh, so you were the driver. Don't matter to me, kid. You're an accessory. I'll put you away either way." He didn't need to smirk.

"I don't have to listen to you, man. You don't scare me."

_Oh, but I do. I'm scaring you and your body is cringing even if you won't admit it. You're reacting to me the way Blair doesn't, not any more. Blair goes along his merry way and no matter what I do, what I say, I can't control his responses. But I can control you._ He smiled. "Oh, I, I hope I don't scare you. I mean," Jim said, rising from his seat, "do I look like I would scare you?" He laughed, bitter and mocking, and dropped his voice down into a parody of intimacy. "I'll tell you what I think would scare a *very* nice looking kid like you: being the new fresh meat on the cell block." By this point he'd circled the table and pinned the boy against the table in the circle of his arms. He remembered another beautiful kid, undercover in a prison psychiatric hospital, who had thrown himself into Jim's arms in a panicked plea for help. Leaning over this boy, Jim let himself fantasize, briefly, about having pushed Blair away into the killer's arms, about watching that sturdy body twist and jerk in terror while he did nothing to stop it. He wondered if this boy thought the heat in Jim's voice was on his behalf. _Oh, Blair..._

"Hey, man, I don't have to--"

Jim grabbed Johnny's shoulder and slammed him face-down on the table. _Call me a coward, will he? Let's see some real fear-based reactions tonight._ "Now listen to me. You're in way over your head, kid." He grabbed Johnny's wrist painfully tight and held it over the phone. _I control you._ "Why don't you call your mom--"

"You leave my mom out of this! You just leave her alone!"

Jim lowered his head until his felt his own breath reflected back from the boy's cheek to brush against the sentinel's lips. "Your mother's gonna miss you, you know that," he crooned. _Such a very nice looking kid; I'll bet your mother's already afraid of this, isn't she? You're afraid. I can feel your slender body trembling against mine and I can feel the heat pouring off of you. You know what I can do and you believe I'd do it, don't you? I have, before, you know. You do know; someone like you can see it, can't you? Did Blair ever see it? Did he understand? Did it disgust him?_ "She's gonna be on her own for a while," Jim told the boy. "There's not gonna be any kissing mommy goodbye." He pushed away from the table and left the room. The scent of Johnny Mikado's fear trailed him into the hallway. It was sour in the back of his throat.

_Blair doesn't fear me. Blair's never feared me. I can put the fear of Jim Ellison in every man, woman, and child I meet, and Blair Sandburg will look at me with pity and jot it down in his notebook. How would it go? 'Subject attempts to control others through intimidation, keeps emotional distance to avoid any danger (note fear of losing control of situation).'_ Jim turned and pressed his hands flat against the wall, arms shaking with the effort not to pound his fists against the concrete until his knuckles broke and bled. He remembered crouching over that poor boy, and let Jim Curtis, convict and cop-killer, out of the box where he'd been waiting with Jim's other undercover personae.

He closed his eyes, letting the smoothness of the cool concrete and the din of the station's inhabitants wash over him, and pictured himself ripping Blair away from that washed-out blond witness he'd been pawing last week and throwing him to the ground. _I'll show you territorial,_ he thought. _I'll show you exactly how intimate I can get._ In his fantasy he pulled his guide's pants down roughly, hawked and spat phlegm onto the exposed ass, and pulled his cock out of his pants, pumping it eagerly in his fist. He wrapped one hand in those curls, tilted Blair's head back, and covered that mouth with his other hand. And then-- and then--

With a groan, Jim leaned forward and pressed his burning face into the coolness of the wall. He didn't know what would happen then. No matter what the fantasy, he could never jerk off to thoughts of his guide, because he could never make it real enough to believe in. Jim Curtis curled back into his hidden corner in Jim's mind. How would Blair smell? Frightened? Excited? Or, damn him, calm and slightly angry? He couldn't imagine forcing Blair to panic. Any scenario he tried always ended, if he were foolish enough to let it run, with Blair storming off free and Jim left alone with a deathwish.

_I call it a violation of friendship and trust._

_I suppose I should be happy you offered any sort of friendship to me at all, considering. I handed you my soul and you pinned it up in your trophy case, and smiled at me. Fool that I am, I'd do it again. Take whatever you want, Blair, just take it. Don't make me pretend that you love me. Just take it._

Any sense of power he'd taken from his bullying of Johnny Mikado was gone. He felt only sympathy for the kid now; they were both in the same boat, fucked over by an irresistible force while they failed laughably to imitate immovable objects. Jim could just hear Blair's gentle laughter now. He closed his eyes and tried not to cry.

 

 


End file.
